The Beginning of the End
by imagine-moves-like-lennon
Summary: "How did the two of you meet?" he said, "I've never gotten to hear the story of how you and he became friends." Ava has often been asked this question. She usually just shrugged it off, but John was different. They had known each other for many years yet he didn"t know how she came to know Sherlock Holmes. That was about to change. (Post Reichenbach)(eventual Sherlock x OC)(T-M)
1. Hope is a Thing With Feathers

"Hope" is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all – "

"What rubbish." I thought as a slammed shut the book I had been flipping through for the past hour and threw it on the coffee table in front of me. My hope had quite literally fallen flat about a week ago and has forced me to wallow in the dark recesses of my own mind. For the past two hours, I have been sitting with John in the silent wasteland of his flat that even the usual obnoxiously loud London street could not penetrate.

Strange how everything becomes void when you're in grief. It's like your whole being is going through a restart process to try and fix the damage that has been inflicted upon it and you just run on autopilot for a while. However, nothing is truly restored to its original condition. It's only been a week since the incident happened and already I could see the change in John. He looked older, tired, and has lost ten pounds, which is unhealthy for the amount of time that it has taken him to lose it. I was trying with all effort that I could muster to try to keep John from falling back into the state he was in before his arrival at Baker Street, but I was failing miserably.

The silence, though, was good. At least we weren't crying. Perhaps we had finally past that stage and have finally come to terms with the fact that he was, indeed, dead. Next we would move on and then, finally, we would forget the great consulting detective who, although he was an irksome showoff, had managed to bring out the best in booth John and I.

This is why we get so aggravated and, on one occasion, violent when people who have only read the papers call him a fake and attacked him with other vicious words. I wanted to prove that Sherlock Holmes was one of the greatest men of our time and to do this, I would constantly make deductions about his accuser which was usually met with "Piss off," and the earlier mentioned violence. I knew John shared this desire with me. He'd even started to dedicate his blog to it. No one reads it, though. The blog that had once depicted the investigations and unbelievable stories of Sherlock Holmes and Company that had captivated public was now dead along with the man himself.

"Ava?" John quietly asked, piercing our bubble of silence.

"Yes?"

"How?"

"'How' what?"

"How did the two of you meet?" he posed, "I've never gotten to hear the story of how you and he became friends."

Over the years, I had been asked this question many times and it was usually accompanied by another question asking why I stuck around. I've never answered either, though; at least not with an answer they wanted. But with John, it's different. Years of practically living with me and he didn't even know how I'd come to Baker Street.

"It's a long and complicated story, John." I told him. It wasn't a lie. I hadn't met Sherlock at a coffee shop one day and decide then and there that that was the man who I'd follow to the end of the world. I honestly thought he was a pompous dick the first time we encountered each other.

"We have time. There's nowhere either of us have to be." He replied quietly still. There was a long pause.

"We meet at university." And that began our story.


	2. Deny What Is, Explain What Isn't

"I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I'll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be."

-Isaac Asimov

I was surrounded by bodies and heads. To volume of noise they were producing was causing me a colossal headache and the content of said noise was appallingly boring. Never had I wished for such a swift death to come to me until now. At least then I wouldn't have to suffer the idiocy of those 18 seemingly lifeless others in our small histology auditorium. It's hard to imagine how any of them had survived long enough to make it into their third year of university, must less finish secondary school. The music the professor was playing to pass the time before class provided a small distraction, but wasn't very effective as I could still hear the stories of a drunken party or how someone had broken another someone's heart. It could be worse, however. For instance, I could be burning in the center of the sun.

"Two minutes." I thought to myself, "In two more minutes, the class will start and all of these absurdities will end." That wasn't the case, though. Mere seconds before the bell rang, a young man in his early to twenties rushed in and, much to my disappointment, took the empty seat next to me. He was tall, though not exceptionally, with dark, curly hair. He was out of breath which could mean one of two things: a) he was on the other side of campus and ran here or b) associated with someone for too long. Judging from the newly appearing red irritation marks on his hands, he had come from the chemistry lab. Where was that? On the other side of campus.

The doors to the auditorium burst open dramatically as an older man in perhaps his mid fifties entered. "In histology," he began with a booming and powerful voice, "observation is key. How can you recognize if a disease is a degenerative, inflammatory, or neoplastic disease without observing what is taking place right in front of you? Furthermore, how can I expect you to deduce what is going on under a microscope if you can't even identify what is going on with the people around you? All of you simply _see_, but do not _observe_."

He paused there and walked around a little while eying us all, no doubt drawing some conclusions of his own. "I am Dr. Townsend." He stated after a while. "Today, we're going to make some observations. I want you to pick a partner, someone you don't know, then I will call you both down and you will tell me all about your partner based only on what you've observed."

I stayed seated while everyone around me began to move about looking for a partner. I wasn't the greatest at group activities mainly because they involved a group. In my peripheral vision, I could see that the young man who had sat beside me hadn't gotten up, either. I turned my head to face him fully and he did the same. It was in that small action that we became partners in what would be the easiest assignment I have ever done.

One by one, groups were called down and one by one each individual made a fool of themselves by either listing off their qualitative features or just say "uh" a lot. Dr. Townsend attempted to assist them by asking simple questions like "What hand is their most dominant?" and "Has their hair ever been dyed?" Some were able to get those questions but couldn't go any deeper.

After watching five groups go in agony, my partner and I were called up and asked to give our names. "Sherlock Holmes," he said extending his hand to me. "Ava Henson," I replied shaking his hand in a polite manner. I wasn't really one for shaking hands, or physical contact in general, but such an action can, at times, reveal things about a person. "Mr. Holmes," Dr. Townsend said, "why don't you begin. What is Miss. Henson's dominant hand? What has she done with her hair?"

"From the callous on her midsection on her middle finger, you can tell that she is right handed. She doesn't do much with her hair. Her roots are the same black as the rest of her hair and eyebrows. She doesn't use a hot iron and it's been a while since her last hair cut. Lots of split and dead ends."

"Anything else you can tell us, Mr. Holmes?"

"She has ink on the nails of her right hand and in the cuticle probably from calligraphy. It could be nail polish, but there are only traces of it on her right hand so it's not. Ava blinks considerably less them most people meaning she is either antisocial or is on a computer too much. Since she was sitting alone earlier and expressed a small sign of irritation, I would lean more towards the latter. She also pushes her sleeves up when she sits down and rolls them back down when standing. It could be from the calligraphy, but her fingers are more muscular that most and she has mashed fingernails. I could dive into Ava's personal life and tell about her family issues, but I believe some things are meant to be kept secret."

The whole auditorium was silent when he finished and I couldn't help but to gape at him for a moment before quickly composing myself. I had never encountered anyone that could observe and make deductions of such caliber. True, I was good at the trade, too, but this was amazing. This was interesting.

My grandmother had been the one who had first pointed out to me the wonders of observation and how you could easily read people like an open book. She had used it as a way of helping people and making certain that they were okay. I, however, had taken the skill she had taught me and built it up to where I can tell everything from that morning's breakfast to your relationship with your mother. I use it for entertainment, escape, and now may future career as a forensic pathologist.

"Did I miss anything?" Sherlock asked breaking the silence of the room and my thoughts.

"I'm actually ambidextrous."

"It's always something." He sounded slightly annoyed that he had missed that.

"Miss Henson," Mr. Townsend said, "which hand is Mr. Holmes's dominant hand and what has he done to his hair?"

"He is right handed. You can tell by the way he plays the violin. The fingertips of his left hand are calloused as well as the left side of his neck. He's dyed his hair but has got it cut recently. It's all relatively the same."

"I bet you've made further observations, haven't you, Miss Henson?"

"Sherlock came here from the chemistry lab across campus. He didn't wear gloves so the chemicals he was handling weren't harmful. However, there is a visible irritation and slight inflammation on his hands. If I were to guess, I would say it was a reaction to borax. He's a showoff. Sherlock wants to show ever how clever he can be." I left out the part about his showing off was more than likely a result of always being outshined by his older sibling, probably a brother. I agree when he said that some things should be kept secret.

"He had toast this morning for breakfast." I continued, "You can tell from the small crumbs still on his shirt." Unlike me, he was wearing a t-shirt that allowed me to see more of his arms. He had an indention mark on his right forearm from where it was leaning against the desk minutes ago. Looking over at his right arm, however, revealed something I wasn't quite expecting. Little pricks, unseen to the unobservant eye, dotted the skin near the inside of his elbow. One was slightly bruised and I doubted it was from leaning on a desk. I looked up to analyze his eyes and that's where I saw it. His pupils were dilated and he had a look of worry swimming around them.

He didn't come from the chemistry lab. He came from his dorm room. It wasn't borax that reacted with his skin. It was cocaine affecting his skin cells and blood vessels. Right now, he was high as a kite and knew that I had figured it out. Right now, he was worried I would reveal this finding to everyone.

Still looking him in the eyes, I told Dr. Townshend that I was done. He asked Sherlock if I had missed anything and he said no and we went back to our seats while the next group came down to give their observations.

I got my notebook out of my bag and set it in between us. While still looking engaged in what was going on in front of me, I wrote "How long?"

"You really are ambidextrous. Such a shame I missed that."

"Please just answer my question." When he didn't respond, I kicked his leg under the desk.

"First time"

"Lie"

"About a year and a half." I was about to reply when he began to write again.

"Why do you care? We just met. You don't have a reason to care. And why didn't you tell everyone that I'm a useless drug addict? You said I was the showoff, but you should see yourself. Did mummy not pay any attention to you?"

I stared at the paper for a while until he kick me want a reply. I wasn't really sure how to respond, though. I could either expose a weakness of mine, which probably already deduced, or I could preach about how cocaine can dull the senses of observation and therefore life. I chose the former which he then again asked why I cared to which I answered with the fact that most people are so ordinary and boring where he actually had brilliance.

"That's not what people usually say about my deductions." He wrote.

"What do they normally say?"

"Piss off"


End file.
